


dried leaves on the surface of a pool

by NingenShikkaku



Category: World Trigger (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:41:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29085540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NingenShikkaku/pseuds/NingenShikkaku
Summary: “Jin-san, have you ever gotten a prediction of your own death?”(Once upon a time, Yuuma asked Jin a question. The answer he received hadn’t been a lie.)
Relationships: Jin Yuuichi/Mikumo Osamu, One-sided Kuga Yuuma/Mikumo Osamu
Comments: 14
Kudos: 28





	dried leaves on the surface of a pool

Osamu sleeps a fitful sleep, letting out whimpers every now and then. Chika is yet to relinquish her grasp on Osamu; hands enveloping his, teeth worrying her lower lip, staring at the innocuous bangle bracelet around Osamu’s right wrist with strange intensity. Usami is working on her laptop, typing furiously and yet glances at them as if on cue every fifteen minutes. Though he knows he probably isn’t helping, Yuuma still hovers, apprehension gnawing on the pit of his stomach.

“Yuuma-kun, don’t you need to check up on Konami-senpai?” Chika asks, smile brittle. “Go on, we’ll be fine.”

Yuuma, looking over at his unconscious, distressed Captain, makes his decision.

“…No. Osamu needs me more right now.”

Then Osamu wakes up.

His eyes are so green. Green, and weighed by ever-shifting future. Yuuma is almost afraid of meeting those eyes.

☁

The invasion is short, but fierce. Osamu and Jin have gotten separated from the team, helping some B-rank newbies overwhelmed by two Humanoid Neighbors. The rest of them are holding off enemy Trion soldiers, but they believe in those two’s capabilities so nobody bats an eye when Jin takes off, Osamu hot on his heels.

It is only after a rather terrifyingly huge explosion over at Osamu and Jin’s last known location, they do start to pay more attention.

“Heads up, everyone!” Usami sounds unusually frantic over the com link. “A Black Trigger in Osamu’s signature just appeared out of nowhere! Jin’s signature vanished, like, two seconds ago!”

When Yuuma and Konami arrives onsite, Osamu is kneeling on the ground, gathering ashes.

“It’s Yuuichi-san,” is Osamu’s quiet reply when asked, and Yuuma’s stomach suddenly twists into knots as Konami’s hand flies to cover her mouth.

A longbow, sleek and gleaming black, lay forgotten to Osamu’s right.

☁

Once upon a time, Yuuma asked Jin a question. It was after the end of B-rank wars, two months before their first expedition to the Neighborhood, two weeks after Jin started dating Osamu.

_“Jin-san, have you ever gotten a prediction of your own death?”_

He was curious. Jin was dating Osamu, and with that came a discussion of loss and separation.

 _“…No,”_ Jin had admitted with a soft smile. _“My Side Effect tells me nothing.”_

That hadn’t been a lie; not _then_. Now, Yuuma wishes that he’d asked the same question before they let Jin run off with only Osamu as backup. Perhaps he could’ve caught the lie.

☁

The first time Osamu says “my Side-Effect tells me so”, Tachikawa nearly slugs him.

Osamu doesn’t even try to dodge, but Izumi grips on his captain’s arm so hard it left bruises, stopping the punch barely an inch away from Osamu’s face. Tachikawa does come to apologize, much, much later, when everybody’s cooled off. Osamu merely smiles.

Yuuma stares at Osamu’s green, green eyes. It’s so gentle and sad.

It’s so beautiful.

☁

The longbow is beautiful, black with azure string and pale turquoise arrows, weighs almost nothing despite its sturdiness. Osamu calls it ‘Ugetsu’, and the Trigger doesn’t respond to anyone but him. The holder, a black bangle bracelet with azure lines, is worn around Osamu’s right wrist.

Yuuma is fascinated every time he sees Osamu draw the string, back straight and form graceful, eyes trained to the target.

It isn’t the first time he thinks Osamu is beautiful.

☁

“It was him, or me.”

Yuuma looks up from his latest project. High school is challenging and school projects are confusing, even with Osamu helping.

“What was it?” he asks.

Osamu’s smile carries the faint edge of grief. “Yuuichi-san chose to die rather than letting _me_ die.” A bitter laugh. “…But I can’t get angry. I’d probably choose the same, after all.”

Yuuma can’t decide whether to comfort Osamu or to bolt away from there. The very idea of Osamu dying terrifies him so.

_(He thinks of his own growing feelings. But no. Osamu deserves better than a dying boy with cold, unfeeling body. Deserves even better than Jin; gray ashes staining the front of Osamu’s uniform.)_

Their school project remains unfinished that night.

☁

( _“He had green eyes_

_so I wanted to sleep with him_

_green eyes flicked with yellow, dried leaves on the surface of a pool—_

_You could drown in those eyes, I said.”_

Yuuma stared at Jin, unimpressed. _“…I think that’s your lust talking, Jin-san.”_

Jin laughed, face pink in embarrassment. _“That’s a poem, Yuuma-kun. A foreign one. It suits him, don’t you think?”_

Yuuma looked at Jin watching Osamu, azure eyes soft and fond and so helplessly in love.

It was almost too much to watch.)

☁

Once upon a time, Yuuma asked Jin a question. The answer he received hadn’t been a lie.

“If only,” Yuuma whispers, and stops.

_(It’s just a little too late—)_

**Author's Note:**

> In celebration (?) of the second season of World Trigger anime.
> 
> The poem Jin recited in the story is by Richard Siken, aka. that one poetry collection that inspired almost all the homoeroticism in my life. In fact almost all of my fanfic titles came from that one book.
> 
> Also, Ugetsu is written in kanji for 'raining moon'.


End file.
